WATSONVILLE -- No issue surrounding the construction of the Pajaro Valley Unified School District's much needed third high school is more troublesome than the one presented by the ever looming Watsonville Municipal Airport.
Early in the 1991 site selection process, five potential school sites were rejected due to their proximity to the airport and air traffic patterns above them. The Harkins Slough Rd. site won the acceptance of the Department of Transportation's Aeronautics Program, but only by the slimmest of margins, according to Dan Gargas, state safety inspector for the airport.
``This site has always been a fence sitter,'' he said. ``And these things get political.''
Now, eight years later, its suitability as a school site is again being questioned.
The most recent concerns were raised following the disclosure of conditions presented to city and school district officials by the Coastal Commission staff that may lead to the construction of a high school on environmentally sensitive lands west of Highway 1.
One condition requires the development area to be located farther from existing protected wetlands than the district had planned. That may push the school's foot print to the north, closer to the airport and into areas that were not previously evaluated by state aeronautics experts. PVUSD Superintendent John Casey has expressed concern that a new evaluation may doom the project.
The conditions were included in a draft of modifications to the city's Local Coastal Program amendments. Those amendments are required to allow the construction of a public school inside the state protected coastal zone. The amendments are scheduled to go before the commissioners during their March 14 to 17 meeting in Carmel.
The general area proposed for the school was first evaluated by aeronautics inspectors in 1987 and was determined to be incompatible with school development. A more narrowly defined portion of the 117 acres was evaluated in 1992 and determined to be suitable for a school, though ``safety and noise concerns'' were noted. That evaluation subsequently expired, and an extension until 2002 was issued in 1997.
Dan Gargas, state safety inspector who performed the last two evaluations said the site evaluated in 1992 was located farther from the airport than the one evaluated in 1987.
``In 1992,'' he added, ``we also took into consideration a drop in flight operations.''
According to Don French, Watsonville airport manager, activity was static from about 1986 to 1992 and a marked increase in activity followed and continued through the 90's. That increase is expected to continue he said.
``Our jet flow (sales of jet fuel) is up 100 percent in the past five years,'' French said. Also, the number of jet aircraft at the airport has increased from three in 1991 to nine.
Gargas evaluated a total of 11 sites in 1992 as part of the district's site selection process using a map provided by the school district. The location of the now proposed school site was indicated on the map by a small rectangle drawn parallel to Harkins Slough Rd. That rectangle occupies only a fraction of the land currently being acquired by the district.
According to Gargas, if the proposed site is outside of the area he was asked to evaluate, a new evaluation would be required.
``We evaluated what we were submitted,'' he said. ``It's incumbent on the school district to accurately depict the area to be evaluated. We take the maps we are given and do the evaluations.''
Casey concedes that not all of the planned facilities can fit within the area depicted by the rectangle but insists that most will.
``All the buildings are within the box,'' he said. ``I believe the buffer is outside and a little of the stadium and part of a ball field are outside of the box.''
The precise location of the school's facilities including classrooms, athletic fields and football stadium has been the subject of recent meetings and discussions between the school district and the Departments of Transportation and Education.
``We've asked the district to provide a schematic that shows the placement of the school within the 55 acres relative to the site that aeronautics approved,'' said John Dominguez consultant for the Department of Education who indicated he expects a response within the next week.
``The site hasn't been approved yet.'' he said.
The Department of Transportation and other state and local agencies evaluate potential school sites for the state Department of Education to ensure that sites chosen by local school districts are suitable for school development.
The new conditions that may force the school closer to the airport have heightened concerns regarding the site's acceptability. And questions are also being raised about the adequacy of the 1992 and 1997 evaluations conducted by Gargas.
A review of Watsonville airport's current master plan, which according to French was approved by the Federal Aviation Administration and the city council in 1986, shows the proposed high school within the most restrictive of four pie shaped arrival/departure pattern zones under which low density land use is recommended. According to the document, schools and hospitals should not be allowed there.
By comparison, one of the 11 sites evaluated in 1992, near Amesti Elementary shares identical restrictions as the Harkins Slough Rd. site, according to the master plan, but is farther from airport's runways. That site was rejected by Gargas while the Harkins Slough Rd. site was not.
Another site near Calabasas Elementary School was declared to be ``not approvable'' in Gargas' evaluation though the site would be acceptable for a school according to the master plan. There are currently five PVUSD schools shown within the airport's traffic pattern zones, and all are located in areas where school use is deemed to be acceptable.
Among documents provided to the local Coastal Commission staff, are letters from then Airport Manager Vernon Ackerman and then City Manager John Radin supporting the 1987 evaluation of the site.
Ackerman wrote, ``Our traffic is increasing regularly. Aircraft would be at full take off power close to the school. The traffic pattern passes over (the site). As does the circling approach from Localizer/NDP approach.''
Radin's letter raised additional concerns regarding times of dense heavy fog and the possibility of aircraft mistaking a school site for the airport.
Regarding the 1992 and 1997 evaluations, however, there is no documentation available that supports Gargas' finding that the site is suitable for a school.
According to Gargas, in 1997 his office had a ``disappearing file problem''.
``We have the evaluation (from then),'' he said. ``But we don't have the supporting documents. They are not there.''
Evaluations, according to Gargas, take into account the number of flights, the size of the planes using the airport, and the altitudes and traffic pattern maneuvers occurring near the site. Inspectors also fly the airport patterns in a state plane to view the targets of their evaluations.
According to Casey, Richard Meyer, then director of PVUSD school construction accompanied Gargas in the plane as the 1992 evaluations were being conducted.
Betsy Eskridge, Senior Aviation Consultant for the Aeronautics Program and supervisor of the program's inspectors said, taking district representatives along on evaluations is not now permitted, and it wasn't encouraged then.
``Reluctantly, we said yes to the site.'' said Gargas of his 1992 evaluation. ``We took into consideration a drop in operations, and the airport did not object. Comments from the airport manager are very influential.''
The whereabouts of Kim Wirht, the airport manager in 1992 who reportedly commented on the sites, are unknown and she has refused requests to be interviewed.
Gargas concedes there has since been an increase in operations at the airport, and sophisticated all-weather landing equipment the airport is hoping to acquire could increase the number of flights and lower minimum altitudes in the flight patterns.
The state evaluations, however, are based on existing conditions, not projections into the future, he said.
Eskridge contradicted that assertion saying, evaluations are supposed to take into consideration projected changes to facilities and flight activity. She said they typically review airport master plans for just that reason.
Gargas said when reevaluating the cite in 1997, he didn't see any significant change in conditions, and he extended the 1992 evaluation.
At the time of that evaluation, the Department of Transportation's internal procedures were being updated and included the use of the Airport Land Use Planning Handbook developed in 1993. According to Gargas, the procedures and handbook were designed to take politics and subjective analysis out of the evaluations, though inspectors were not required to use them until the procedures were formalized in 1998.
Eskridge said at the time of the 1997 evaluation, safety inspectors were encouraged to use the updated procedures and handbook and all of them should have.
``The handbook is just one of the tools used to conduct evaluations,'' she said. But if the handbook wasn't used, ``I would find that troubling.''
According to Gargas, he could have used the handbook and related procedures, but he wasn't required to, and he did not use them when performing his 1997 evaluation.
Under these now formalized procedures, a new evaluation of the controversial school site might be different, Gargas said. And negative assessments of other schools he was asked to evaluate in 1992 might also be different.
``Our evaluation is a snapshot in time,`` he said. ``It would be a whole new ball game today,'' he said.
French said he told Gargas in 1997, ``If we had a choice we would put the high school somewhere else, but its not a problem for us _ just a perceived problem.''
He does not consider the school's proposed location a safety issue but rather a potential nuisance. A change from the standard left-hand traffic pattern to a right hand pattern might be in the airport's future. But since that would increase air traffic and noise over residential areas to the west, an EIR would be required, French said.
The current approval of the site is in effect until June 2002, and a reevaluation would be performed now, Gargas said, only if the school district asked for one or if there are changes in the location of the planned construction.
Gargas said a new evaluation would take between 35 and 45 working days. But the 1997 evaluation that led to the extension of the 1992 findings took just seven days, according to his June 10, 1997 letter to the school district.
According to PVUSD board trustee Willie Yahiro, the air traffic safety issue is not a problem, and he's satisfied that the project meets the state regulations.
``We would have never gone forward if the site was not safe,'' he said. ``I can assure the public they have addressed the safety aspects.''
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